Bliss Brothers (Complete Series), page 27
His palm is warm when it comes to rest on the small of my back. Driver rubs back and forth with an intimacy that makes my throat tighten.
I can’t say why I chose tonight to walk along the beach. Maybe it’s counterintuitive, but I feel safer in the dark, there on the beach where my parents and I vacationed every summer growing up. The Bliss Resort is as familiar as my uncle’s house, and maybe that’s why, when I saw Driver standing there…
I like a little risk in my life. A little. And he seemed more reward than risk, with the moonlight in his hair and his feet in the sand. Want. My brain took in the image of him, flipped it right-side up, and I wanted.
“We won’t see each other again.” In his mouth, it sounds thoughtful, on the edge of bewilderment.
“I don’t get out much.”
He makes a disbelieving noise in the back of his throat, hand still stroking the small of my back. “Only for midnight walks on the beach?”
“I don’t always walk on the beach.” Back and forth, his fingertips gentle on my skin. I want to look at him—I never want to stop looking at him, come to think of it—but the rhythm is a hell of a lullaby. Closing my eyes doesn’t mean I’ll fall asleep. It only means giving an inch. My eyelids are weighted down with sex hormones and peace—how can I fight that?
“Even if you did, I’m not there very often.” A note of wonder stirs itself into his voice. “I’m usually out on the road.” He laughs, the sound a smooth rumble. “The odds were against us meeting tonight.”
“Must have been fate.” My lips hum with the echoes of his kisses, and I drag one hand upward so I can brush my fingertips against them. “The universe meant for us to meet tonight. A one-time miracle.”
“A one-time miracle,” he repeats. “Aren’t miracles always one-of-a-kind?”
“I don’t know that much about miracles. I’m not much of a miracle girl.”
“No?” Driver shifts on the bed, his hand going away, and for the life of me, I can’t drag my eyes open to see what he’s doing. “I don’t know if I agree with that.”
A cool, featherlight touch over my naked skin—the sheet. It’s followed on its heels by the weight of the comforter. Last I saw of the comforter, it was bunched in Driver’s hand, his bicep flexed and tight. I burrow under it and, through all the fabric, feel his hand settle on the small of my back. I’m too tired and too happy to be embarrassed about the noise that finds its way between my lips.
“Easy,” Driver says, a warm familiarity in his voice. My heart hitches in my chest. Nights like this—you can’t repeat them. Who ever repeated a miracle?
“I’m so easy,” I mumble, sinking into the mattress. “Not easy like that. Taking it easy. You know. Easy.”
“I know.” He brushes my hair back over my ear. The heat of a singular kiss warms my cheek.
Don’t, insists a voice in my mind, so quiet I could ignore it. “Don’t want to waste it,” I tell him, trying and failing to inject urgency into my voice. If I could only open my eyes.
“The sun is coming up,” Driver says. “We didn’t waste a second.” His weight bows the mattress next to me. “If I don’t see you again, just remember.”
A long time goes by.
“Remember what?”
Maybe he says it. Maybe he doesn’t. But I hear it: Miracle girl.
2
Holiday
Four weeks later
“I CAN’T BELIEVE you’re staying in that massive house all by yourself.” My best friend, one Sophia Maclean, sighs into the phone. “You should throw at least one party before you leave. There’s plenty of time to plan it, and—”
I lose the rest of her sentence to a gigantic yawn and push my foot against the stand of the hammock. It’s become one of my all-time favorite places lately. I can look out over the lake and be in the shade from the house at the same time. The hammock swings a bit faster, and I turn my gaze to the cloudless blue of the August sky. My Diet Coke ran out an hour ago. If it weren’t for that, I could stay here forever. I press my paperback to my chest.
“—plenty of people down at that resort.”
I burst out laughing. “If you think I’m going to invite a bunch of strangers from Bliss to come party at my uncle’s house, you’re crazy. Have the pies finally gone to your head?”
A week after we graduated college, Soph bought a food truck and drove it out to Portland. Now she makes pies out of it and lives in a vintage Airstream. When she wants to move it, she pulls it behind a big truck. The thought of having a home on wheels like that has a certain draw, but I like things to be a little more…permanent.
Sure. Just like the apartment I’ll be sharing with four other women at the end of the summer. My stomach turns over.
“It could be fun,” Sophie insists. “If you did that, I’d drive over to attend.”
That makes me laugh. “You say that like you live down the block.”
“I live wherever I want,” she sniffs. “If I wanted to live down the block, I could.”
My stomach gurgles again. It’s unsettling, the gurgling, and yet…I don’t quite have the energy to sit up. I put a foot out to stop the rocking motion of the hammock. There. That’s a bit better.
Here in the shade, the temperature is perfect. I had the brilliant idea of bringing a pair of sunglasses out here with me, so really, all I could ask for is another Diet Coke. I wonder if Margie, the housecleaner my uncle keeps on all summer, would bring me another one. Is it her day today? God, why is it so hard to think?
I stifle a big yawn.
“—hear me?”
“What? Sorry, Soph, you must have cut out.” Or my brain must have cut out. Given how the last week has gone, it’s more likely my brain.
“I said, are you feeling okay? You sound tired. Or maybe you sound bored. If I’m boring, just tell me. It won’t hurt my feelings.”
“Please.” I swallow another yawn. “You’d be devastated. But it’s not you, it’s me.”
“Nice.”
“Really. I think it’s all the writing.” All the writing that I…haven’t done. Not for the last two weeks. “I think I just need a nap. I’ll call you back, okay? I’ll call you back.”
* * *
SICK.
I’m sick.
Oh, God, I’m really sick, stomach churning. I hate throwing up, but it’s too late to stop it. It’s too late to do anything but shove myself upright and try to miss my clothes.
This would be a semi-decent plan if I were anywhere but on a hammock.
No.
The cloth bulges under my hand, rocking the hammock to the side. My leg catches on one edge and I go over hard onto the deck. The impact dislodges the last of the control I had over my stomach and up comes everything I’ve been snacking on for the day.
The…night?
When my stomach stops heaving, my brain manages to catch up with my general surroundings. I came out here when it was daylight and now the sky is painted in the faded pink of an early summer morning.
I haul myself up from the deck.
This is so gross. My paperback landed in a very unfortunate spot. New Moon bites the dust.
I pick it up by its one vomit-free corner and walk it over to the covered garbage can. Next step: a hose.
My uncle’s house is one of those places where everything you could possibly need is somewhere nearby in a concealed planter. I saw the guys who clean the windows haul a hose out of one of the shelves designed to look like they’re part of the house. Bless my rich uncle for this detail. Or, I guess, bless the people who designed this house. The connection for the water is in the concealed shelf, and inside of a minute I’m washing my own puke off the stained hardwood surface of the deck.
What is happening?
The sky lightens over Ruby Bay as I squeeze the spray nozzle of the hose to the beat of Stayin’ Alive, a song I haven’t heard since the last time I watched one of my favorite workplace sitcoms on Netflix. It’s burned into my brain just for occasions like this. You know. Daybreak deck-cleaning sessions in advance of anyone at all showing up at the cottage. I’ve gotten the desk sufficiently wet and clean by the time the sun puts one tentative edge over the horizon. Other than the enormous puddle draining through the slats, there’s no sign of my freak sickness.
It’s really too bad about the paperback, though.
What am I still doing out here, anyway? It doesn’t feel great to be on my feet. In fact, it still feels like I’m swaying in the hammock—back and forth, back and forth. I can’t think about it too much or my stomach swerves sideways along with the phantom motion.
I’m missing something.
There, under the hammock. The little rectangle that’s been my trusty sidekick for two Christmases, ever since I found it in my stocking. My iPhone.
It’s blessedly far from the hose water and was totally untouched in the stomachgeddon that was this morning, and I snatch it up and cradle it to my chest. It’s still fine, with the tempered-glass screen protector and case still whole and unscratched. That’s a plus, because if this thing breaks, there’s no way I’m buying another one. Not with rent in New York City costing what it does. Oh—okay. Don’t think about that either. Or the imminent end of the summer.
The sunrise is in full swing when I swipe at the screen of the phone to get the time. It’s a hell of a thing, a sunrise over Ruby Bay, and I get the same sentimental ache behind my breastbone that I get when I think of being at home. Maybe it’s pathetic, to be this homesick as a grown woman, but there it is.
I get the time, all right.
I also get an alert from an app called PeriodThrive. The little window, with its graceful rounded corners, winks at me merrily from the screen.
Day Three of Your Period :)
Make sure to hydrate and take some time for yourself!
It’s not day three of my period.
My stomach plummets down through the deck slats and lurches back up to my throat.
Maybe it’s day one of my period. Maybe some phantom, slightly late hormone crash forced me to sleep outside last night against my will. The wild part of me, the part that will walk down the beach to the Bliss Resort and pretend I’m staying there for a few minutes at a time, would shove down her pants right here on the deck to find out.
I’m not feeling nearly so wild this morning.
The sliding glass door opens with a whisper under my hand and I make a beeline for the bathroom off the kitchen. One flick of the wrist and the light is on, warming up slowly.
Peeing. This is about peeing. I do have to pee. The toilet is in a separate, smaller closet from the rest of the bathroom, which I’ve heard online is at least a thousand times more sanitary than a traditional bathroom setup. I leave the door wide open, pretend this is really regarding a full bladder, and push down my pants.
There’s nothing.
My period is late.
I don’t even stand up. I dial Sophie’s number.
“Hello!” she sings into the phone. “What’s your emergency? You forgot to call me back yesterday. What are you doing up so early?”
“Why do you sound so chipper at three in the morning?” Machines whir in the background of the call and Sophie huffs good-naturedly into my ear.
“What happened?”
“Why do you think something happened?”
Why am I hedging about this?
“Hey, Holly?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s a phone call between friends. You forgot. Don’t lose sleep over it.”
“Oh, that’s not what I’m calling about.” Sophie laughs. “I mean, I do feel bad about not calling.” I feel bad about not calling, but mostly I feel like I have the world’s worst case of vertigo and I can’t tell if it’s from my non-period or the throwing up or this atrocious hour of the morning. “But…”
Three beeps sound in the background and Sophie lets out a satisfied sigh. “That was a killer workout.” There’s some rattling around—she must be stepping off the elliptical and wiping down the machine—and then her voice comes closer. “You’ve got five minutes before I hit the showers. The pie stand opens at noon and I want to start on some backups.” Her schedule is unreal. Three o’clock at the gym, just to run a pie stand? It’s real dedication to the craft. Also, thank God she does, otherwise I’d have nobody to call during what very well could be an emergency.
I’ll never fully understand her.
My heart pounds, mouth dry, ass firmly planted against the now-warm toilet seat. “So,” I begin.
“So?” she prompts.
“My period’s late.”
“Hol, that’s not a big deal.” I can picture her walking through the gym, dark ponytail swinging behind her. “All kinds of things can affect it. Are you feeling stressed about the book?”
The book. I haven’t even thought about the book since I fell out of the hammock.
The book is the second reason I’m here. My parents wanted me out of the house, and I was going to finally write the book I meant to write when I was in college. I’ve got three weeks left before I move to the city to start the most entry-level of entry-level editing jobs at a publishing house in the Seaport District of Manhattan. I’ll be working on other people’s books then, and I won’t have time to work on my own.
But I haven’t been stressed about the book—not for the last couple of weeks. I’ve barely been able to concentrate on it. I’ve barely been able to stay awake.
“Besides,” Sophie says into the silence. “It’s not like you’re having a bunch of crazy sex. You won’t even agree to throw a party.”
“Yeah.”
“Hol?”
“Yeah?”
“I didn’t like the sound of that. First, if you’re having a bunch of crazy sex, you should tell me, since this girl’s baking too many pies to get some. And second…are you having a bunch of crazy sex?”
Not a bunch, no.
Just the one time.
That night on the beach, with Driver Bliss.
“I’ll take your silence for a yes. You rascal. I don’t say that often, but you are a real rascal. Having men over to that house every night—”
“It wasn’t every night.” Driver’s skin glowing in the reflection of the streetlamp. His expert fingers strumming between my legs. The particular cool of the air in his room against my skin, making my nipples harden into sensitive peaks. “It was just once.”
Just once doesn’t do it any justice. It sounds like a quick, anonymous fuck in a bar bathroom, but it wasn’t that.
There was a condom. I’m sure of that. I’m sure there was a condom. I can see him rolling it on.
But there were other moments.
“It was just once,” I repeat, louder.
“Well, there’s only one thing to do for peace of mind,” Soph says briskly. “Go get a test.”
3
Holiday
THE TEST WAS POSITIVE.
So was the second one I bought from the drugstore in downtown Ruby Bay, and so was the third one I drove to Lakewood to buy in case the entire supply in Ruby Bay had a manufacturing defect.
All positive. Not a hint of doubt. PREGNANT, they read in big letters. I took a picture in case anyone asks for proof.
Not that anyone is going to ask for proof.
Especially not out here on the beach in front of the Bliss Resort, where I’ve been pacing back and forth for forty-five minutes, my eyes on the sand. Nobody can blame a girl for looking for sea glass, even if that’s not how this journey down the beach started.
After the third test, I picked up my phone to call Sophie and got her voicemail. She’s busy selling pies. And even if she wasn’t, what’s she going to do from Portland? Listen to me breathe heavily into the phone?
Even I couldn’t stay in the house with news like this. My feet had to move. My uncle’s property wasn’t wide enough to contain the shock, so I kept walking. Technically, a certain amount of beachfront where the water laps on the shore can’t be owned by anybody, so technically I’m not doing anything wrong by tracing my nighttime route across a couple of other properties as long as I keep my feet in the water.
The resort came into view bit by bit. First, the bluff. A couple of beach chairs poking above the rocky outcrop are the only sign that there’s a small, secret pool up there. I found it years ago when I was hiking as a kid. Past the bluff the land curves, opening up the view of the massive main hotel building, white and shining as a castle. The Bliss stretch of beach features a wide patch of accessible flooring where they host yoga classes and parties. There’s a gazebo in the far distance. The biggest pool throws reflections up onto the side of the hotel, and the rest of the resort stretches out behind it, leading to the hill where the wealthier people have private homes.
I’m headed for a far-off gazebo on the other end of the resort for the third time, going a few steps beyond my last footprints. A round, blue chunk of sea glass catches my eye in the sand. I pick it up automatically. It rests in my palm, the same color as Driver’s eyes.
“Fancy meeting you here.”
Oh, sweet Jesus.
I whirl around, coming face to face with none other than the father of my baby.
The father of my baby—oh, God. I hadn’t thought of him in those explicit terms before this moment, but that’s what he is.
His feet sink into the sand and I can’t help but to trace a path from those feet all the way up past his shorts to the tan skin peeking out from underneath a white t-shirt. And those eyes…
“Hi.”
“Holiday.” I hear an echo of the night we spent together when he says my name. “You dropped your sea glass.” He steps forward, bending to pick up the blue glass, and a breeze off the lake wafts his scent over to me. “Here.” Driver presses the sea glass back into my palm, his fingertips brushing over skin that I never thought of as sensitive until this moment. I catch myself staring at it, then back into his eyes. He wears an easy grin, like he’s totally untroubled by anything in the world.
My stomach does a slow turn.
“Thanks.” I choke on the word, turning it into a whisper, and then clear my throat to cover for myself. As if he’s going to miss how unbearably awkward this is while we’re standing here in broad daylight. “Why—what…” Driver’s smile widens. “I didn’t expect to see you out here.”
